


Unsteady Steps

by AiyraOdessa



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Humor, Inuyasha babysitting, No Romance, Post-Canon, toddlers are little devils
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29170737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AiyraOdessa/pseuds/AiyraOdessa
Summary: All he had to do was watch a couple of toddlers for a few minutes. How hard could it be?
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	Unsteady Steps

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to @hanmajoerin, Kumiko and @born4eachother for reading my draft, correcting my English and giving me suggestions. You guys rock!

It was only supposed to be for a few minutes, it shouldn’t be a difficult task. He killed demons for a living, how hard could watching a couple of kids be? Well, a lot harder than he had anticipated.

Kohaku had just arrived at the village, with an injured Kirara, asking his sister’s help on how to better heal their companion. Kaede and Rin were tending to Natsume’s youngest, who caught a cold, and Miroku was somewhere probably doing something that InuYasha didn’t quite care to understand. The important part was that Miroku wasn’t there either, and the only one available was him.

“I ain’t changing any diapers.”

“You don’t have to. Just keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t get hurt. I promise I’ll be back in a few minutes, and I won’t be far,” Sango said. “They won’t even notice I’m gone.”

Well, that was a lie. As soon as Sango left the hut, the two little girls, who had been completely immersed in playtime, jumped up and trailed their mother.

“Uh, no. You have to stay inside.” InuYasha wasn’t entirely sure that babies their age could understand human language. He assumed they did, because other people seemed to enjoy talking to them constantly, even though they were not able to answer. Still, the two identical girls made no signs of having understood—or even heard—what had just been said. They continued to make their way to the door in unsteady steps, following their mother like a couple of ducklings.

InuYasha wondered if he should grab the toddlers to keep them from running out, but truth be told, he avoided touching them as much as possible. Miroku would tease, saying who knew such a powerful hanyou could be afraid of a couple of babies. But that was stupid, of course he wasn’t afraid of them. It felt more like immense discomfort. Maybe because they were so tiny when he first saw them, so squishy. Their little faces wrinkled and they had bald heads, barely resembling human children; like hatchlings barely resembling birds. Human babies were so ugly, and frail, and noisy—why would he even want to hold them in the first place? Though he had to admit they did smell pretty good. InuYasha was sure the only reason Miroku liked doing it was because they were his kids, otherwise what was the point? He could get the nice baby smell just by sharing the same space, there was no need to touch them. But in the last few months the girls were growing to be a little more like little humans, maybe even developing personalities separate from each other. There had been a little over two years since InuYasha had seen Kagome for the last time, so he assumed the toddlers must be around one year of age now. Funny how this time seemed an eternity when he thought of Kagome, and yet it felt like the twins had grown up so fast in the same period.

So even though the two little things seemed much more durable now, InuYasha decided against picking them up, and just positioned himself between the girls and the door. He thought maybe this would scare them away, but it did nothing to deter the girls. Each of them tried to find some kind of breach to escape, looking more frustrated than scared. One of the twins (InuYasha would never guess if it was Kin’u or Gyokuto, they looked exactly the same: he half believed that their parents couldn’t tell the difference either) fell on her bum, looked at him, and uttered the most angry sound he ever heard a baby make. If she could talk, InuYasha guessed she would be calling him some nasty names, but right now it sounded like a very frustrated “gaaaah!”. Her little face stared at him with much anger, no doubt having realized he was to blame for her inability to escape. The expression made her look more like Sango than ever before.

“Whatever, you still can’t leave. Not my rules, you can complain to your mother later.” The other little girl, still on her feet, decided it was time to let it go and return to her very important baby business. She started to make her way back to her toys, stopping along the way when she lost balance to touch her little hands on the ground, get up, and start to walk again. Although she sucked at walking, it looked like she had it under control and was in no immediate danger of hurting herself, so InuYasha focused his attention on her stubborn sister who was still sending daggers in his direction. He nudged her softly with his foot, trying to get her to move away from the door, saying: “Go on, follow your sister.”

It took a few more moments of angry staring before the stubborn toddler finally gave up and started to make her way back across the room. That was when InuYasha realized he let his guard down too soon.

The first one had not crawled back to her toys. She had made her way to the hearth, grabbed a fistful of ashes that still remained, and was now directing it straight to her open mouth.

InuYasha didn’t know much about babies, but he guessed eating ashes was not good for them.

With a jump and a “Don’t!” louder than he intended, InuYasha grabbed the little hand and made her release the ashes before they were full on in her mouth. The toddler got startled, maybe because of the sudden movement, or the loud voice directed at her. It all happened in slow motion: The girl looked at him with her big eyes, started to contort her face, then opened her mouth. InuYasha knew what was coming next. That horrid, horrid noise.

“No. No, no, no, no, no.” Those cries could make him numb from miles away. There was no way he was going to be able to handle being in the same room with her shouts without suffering from permanent hearing loss. Panicking, InuYasha tried to think fast of a way to stop the incoming doom. What the hell do babies like that could possibly make her stop crying?

They liked being picked up, right? He vaguely remembered Miroku raising them up over his head, that made them giggle. He even put them over his shoulders sometimes. If that was what it took to save his ear drums, so be it.

“There. Please keep your mouth shut,” InuYasha said as he picked the baby up. That seemed to have the desired effect, and the girl paused before she could utter her first scream, now more curious than scared. InuYasha placed her on his left shoulder, and with his left hand still securing the now giggling baby, started looking around in search of the other one.

Those little things were quick. Quicker than they looked. He had barely looked away trying to divert an emergency and already lost one of them. Not by the toys, not in the hearth eating ashes, not close to the door… There! Behind the low table Miroku used to write his sutras. Sneaky.

Before he could make any movement in her direction he felt wet little hands touch his left ear and pull on it.

Oh  _ hell _ no.

Was she trying to  _ bite _ his ear?

There was no way he would let any gremlin of a child get their nasty little hands (much less their mouth!) on his ears like that. That was unforgivable, and off to the ground the girl was (gently) placed again. He would take his chances with the ashes if that’s what she wanted. Almost immediately, the baby started to crawl again, while her sister made her way under the table and tried to stand up.

Except she wasn’t fully out from below the table yet.

A loud thud sounded around the room when the girl knocked her head on the wood. The toddler placed her little hands on her head, and opened her mouth. There was nothing InuYasha could do to stop that one from crying.

Trying to fish the screaming baby from under the table, InuYasha attempted to determine if having his eardrums busted was punishment enough for letting one of the twins get hurt, or if Sango was going to skin him alive for it. He didn’t even know if that head blow was serious. It sounded serious! The kid sure screamed like she was dying. Taking the girl in his arms and trying to think while he felt his eardrums cry alongside her, he started feeling around her skull for any signs of something serious. She wasn’t bleeding and there seemed to be no lumps, which in human adults would mean it wasn’t even worth a second look, but babies seemed to be other creatures entirely.

Before he could get too distracted, he looked around to try and grab the one that was on the floor now. He would rather hold them both for the moment to keep them from wandering off. In fact, InuYasha was convinced these kids should not be allowed to be free at all. He would suggest their parents leash them or at least put them in a cage to keep them controlled. By now, InuYasha had changed his mind about the ear biting, and would take that over two screaming babies. There was no way he was going to let the other one free to hurt herself as well.

And that was what he was going to get had he not turned at that exact moment in the direction of the door. The second girl was walking to the exit again, not noticing the raised floor she was about to fall off in about a second.

Even though they looked like Sango, InuYasha now had no doubts whatsoever that these were Miroku’s children. They had death wishes. The hanyou had lost count of how many times during their journey he had tried—only half of the time succeeding—to keep Miroku from killing himself in stupid ways: widening the Kazaana, sucking up poison,  _ drinking  _ poison… And now it seemed that his daughters were just as attracted to danger and death as their father had been. No wonder they needed somebody watching them at all times—they wanted to eat ashes and fall down steps face first.

“Just watch where you’re going!” he managed to say while he grabbed the girl by the back of her clothes, just a moment before her head hit the floor. Now he had two kids in his arms, one screaming her lungs out in his left arm and the second hanging by her clothes on his right hand. She looked very confused regarding her new position and was no doubt debating whether or not the right course of action was to cry like her sister. As InuYasha felt the cloth start to slip from his hand, he did the only thing he could think of while completely dizzy from the loud crying. He tossed the toddler up and grabbed her again with his arm in a more comfortable and secure position. In retrospect, his decision would have earned him a Hiraikotsu blow to the head or worse if Sango stepped in at that very moment.Thankfully, the little girl seemed to think being thrown into the air was hilarious and started giggling, tossing her tiny hands up as if asking him to do it again. Listening to her sister laugh made the crying one start to quiet, her screams diminishing to whimpers.

That was when Sango walked into the house, saying, “There! Told you it was going to be fast.”

The one who had been crying immediately stretched her little arms and bended in her mother’s direction, demanding to be picked up.

“Seems like you had everything under control. At least Gyokuto seems to be having fun. She usually doesn’t like to be held by anybody other than Miroku and I,” she noted while reliving her friend of one of the babies. “Oh, Kin’u, have you been crying? I hope the big youkai wasn’t too scary,” she said mockingly.

InuYasha was silent. Looking her dead in the eyes, he set Gyokuto as well on her arms, and uttered, "Never again. Never again ask me to watch your brats."

He made his way to the door while Sango looked at her girls trying to conceive what they could have done to merit that reaction. Before he stepped outside, he turned to her and said, "And stop making those," before disappearing far from the hut for the rest of the day.

Sango grinned as she heard those parting words. She guessed they could wait a few more days before telling InuYasha there was a third one on the way.

**Author's Note:**

> Babies, man. So weird looking and so nice smelling. I certainly have had my own share of awkwardness around little kids, so I wonder if Inuyasha was the same.  
> Also, if you have ever been around children who have just learning how to walk, you know how attracted to danger they are. It’s like they want to fall down stairs or inside a pool. And they can be really fast. I guess you need some sort of superhuman speed or senses to keep up with two at the same time.


End file.
